Can audio books and printed books coexist?
I’m busy going through a few thousand (nope, not kidding) emails and RSS items from my two week much-needed vacation tonight, and I noticed a mention about our service on someone’s personal website. The author wrote:
f I was unable to read for some reason, I would consider using [Podiobooks.com and Librivox] and would certainly recommend them to others who prefer to listen rather than read for whatever reason. However, I can read and one of my favorite pleasures is to curl up with a hard copy of a good mystery or love story.
While I certainly appreciate the sentiment, I’m stuck by the perceived mutual exclusivity of the listening versus reading. This poster is not along, as I’ve heard and read much the same from many others.
I just don’t get it. While I was on vacation (in Jamaica, if you care to know), I read (as in, dead tree versions) four novels. I don’t know if audio versions of these titles were available or not; I didn’t check. I also listened to a few episodes of a podiobook or two, caught up on a new audio screen play I’m not sure is my cup of tea and even downloaded (though didn’t listen to) an honest-to-goodness old fashion audio book to the old MP3 player before taking off. Had I had the common sense to turn of my Treo and/or packed a charger for it, I probably would have read some of the ebook I’m getting close to finishing as well.
Is this something unique to the world of literature? Or do people exist out there who refuse to listen to recorded music because the love a live performance so much? Or be such a fan of cooking that they simply cannot enjoy a nice dinner at a quality restaurant? Or perhaps shun watching a movie on anything less than the silver screen?
Revel in the variety of options, that’s my philosophy. Well, one of them.
January 14th, 2007 at 3:49 am
To answer your basic question, yes, I believe that they can co-exist because they are different types of entertainment. People listen to audio books for different reasons than they read paper books.
The main reason is simply eyeball resources. I read paper books (and eBooks) during those times where I can spare eyeball resources (like at work, during a boring meeting, 8-)). But you can’t read paper books while on a long drive, because you have to keep your eyes on the road. For that, audio books work very nicely.
Really good books will sell well in both mediums. I’ll use Neil Gaiman’s Stardust as an example. I have both the paper version (which I read first) and the audio version. I purchased the audio version partly because Neil does such a great job reading his work and partly for entertainment for when I cannot spare eyeball resources (like on a long drive).
Both are on my shelf (well, the audio book is actually ripped to MP3 on my hard drive and the CDs are in my storage bin, but…) and I’ll enjoy them depending on where I’m going to have free time.
January 14th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Agreed, there are 2 types of media, hard-copy (that can be split into dead-tree, and recycling electrons – ebooks) and the ‘spoken word’. When I was working, I did my ‘serious’ reading with dead-tree books, and my recreational reading on tape, then CD and now I’ve added Podiobooks to my sources.
Sure there are advantages to each type, technical reading is more like reference material, mark a page (dog-ear it if need be) and use a hi-lighter on important points. While recreational reading can even let the reader skip pages or whole chapters if needed (think of abridged books). It’s possible but harder to skip back to a point a few chapters back to see when and why a new character was introduces, but that’s the same with a movie or TV show – I wait for re-runs.
As my eyes got older I still read hard-copy from time to time, still for technical reading, but all of my recreational reading now in audio books. I use a variety of sources, the local library for CD (or tape), PodioBooks, LibriVox, and Podcasts – though these are not books. This is great for those of us with older eyes.
January 14th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
The question really comes down to whether you want to read books or whether you want to READ BOOKS (!!!!).
I read a ton of books. But it isn’t enough. I want to read MORE books. I also I also want to watch a DVD now and then, have some food, and a few other things. The problem comes with not enough hours in between 0:00:01am and 24:00:00pm. Whoever came up with this stupid system really skimped on hours when they were setting it up. In order to maximize the number of books I can read within that measly 24 hour period I need to get creative – read in places and at times when, as Ron said, “eyeball resources” aren’t available. Audibooks and the solution to the lack of hours ina single day. There are lots of OTHER tips and tricks to jamming more books into a single day, but there’s none more efficient. Start with audiobooks and you can probably triple the number of books you can read in a single day.
Oh and by the way, I want to read more comics too but as far as I can tell, there is no equivalent and easy system for jamming more comics into a day.
January 14th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
I tear through audio books as fast as I can get my hands on them. I commute 3 hours every day – I drive to the train, I walk from the train station. Though I could “read” for about 20 minutes on the train, I can listen during the entire hour and a half each direction whether I’m driving, walking or riding. I listen to podcasts because I get an infinite stream of free content to fill up my time.
These days I find reading real books a chore, honestly. I have to pay for them. I have to carry them with me. I have to remember my page. I can only read when relatively stationary, when I can focus my eyes on the printed page. How…limiting.
Now, having said that, I still do it. There are books I want to read that are not available on audio. But I go through them at such a slow pace. Compared to 3 hours of listening time a day I have maybe 15 minutes of actual reading time. It’s just not the same.
January 15th, 2007 at 2:24 am
I love all books! My mother says we are all readers because we were sat on the potty with books until we acheived success (yes, we are all anal retentive but voracious readers!). I will read anything from the classics to the cereal box at the breakfast table.
Alas, as other responders have mentioned, one cannot read anywhere, so my passion for audio content has grown up along with the mediums available. Now I listen to books while travelling, cooking, cleaning or wasting time playing solitare (on the computer). I will read e-books if that’s all that is available (a handy standby option).
Some books are good for a curl up on the couch read, but even they can be improved by excellent presentation. Our home has a healthy collection of fiction and non-fiction for myself and my daughter. A fine example is the Harry Potter series. We have hard covers of each and they are terrific. I encouraged my 11 year old to read them for literacy but once read on paper, I brought out the Jim Dale narrated audio books and we have listened to them many, many times and it never grows boring.
It’s all good, people! A time and a place for every format.
January 15th, 2007 at 2:28 am
oh, I forgot – the experts says that children benefit from listening to stories as well as reading from the page. Sometimes I read out loud to my girl, but often she’s off with her ipod listening to “The Pocket and the Pendant” or her all time fav, “Black Jack Justice”. She seems to balance it with paperbacks from Scolastic. I think it all works together to create readers with great imaginations, super vocabulary and fine literary skills.
January 15th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
I think that every medium has its place.
For me, it’s about sensory engagement. When I listen to audiobooks (tape/cd/audiobook/podcast), I tend to check out: I’m usually doing something else that requires my eyesight and some attention (walking, knitting, laundry), but for the most part, my awareness of my body is *in the story*.
When I read in “dead tree” format, my eyesight is on the page, but my awareness of my body is in the real world: I’m engaged in the story, but my body feels what’s actually there, whether it’s an overactive radiator or a warm breeze on the beach.
So I tend to choose audio when I *should* be doing something else, but can sneak in some listening (most of the time), and the printed word when I actively want to be mindful of my environment (say, while on vacation).
Of course, this could be related to why I started listening: to have something to do during boring events (the very first was cleaning my room at age 12, followed by commuting to grad school at 22).
January 19th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I rarely read recreationally these days, to be honest. I spend most of my waking hours at a computer screen and by the time I force myself away from it my eyes just want to rest. As a result, life without audio books is unimaginable.
However, I simply cannot fathom a worse media for studying. Both formats can certainly coexist.